A coworker suggested I check out Fiverr.com. I didn’t take him too seriously. I remembered Fiverr.com as a collection of random people doing outrageous things for 5 dollars. Someone would wear your shirt for five dollars, or create a custom video singing happy birthday. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Fiverr.com pivoted and are now focused on small business services. This looked interesting, so I decided to test some of the services on Fiverr. I also did some random fun things for myself.
Fun Things
Getting Simpsonized!
Business use cases were not the most fun part of Fiverr. The most fun part of Fiverr was getting myself drawn as a Simpsons character! I found this gig (note: Fiverr refers to all of the products and services offered on the platform as gigs): I will draw you as any Simpsons character for $5. They also not allows add-on so not every gig is $5. For this gig, I decided to add an extra character ($5) and get it expedited (4 days faster for $5). In total, I spent $15 on this drawing, but I was really happy with the results! I received the image drawn in a jpeg format.
Getting Simpsonized with my Wife!!
After seeing the results of the first Simpsons gig. I decided to try it again with a gig that mentioned it drew the characters in an HD quality. I sent the service provider photos of my wife and I. The add-on choices for this gig were slightly different. It was an extra $5 to get your character drawn in HD quality. Since I had my wife and I drawn, it was technically two separate gigs, so the total for this was $20. I was happily surprised with the numerous file formats I received with this gig. In the previous one, I received one jpg image. In this one, I received numerous different file types. I received a .EPS, .AI, .JPG, and .PNG file for each character and two jpgs of the characters standing together. I don’t work with vector images, so I am not sure how to use EPS or AI filetypes, but I am sure they can come in handy if I ever get more involved in that type of graphics work. Side Note: my wife looks sexy as a Simpson.
Business Things
A sample Chrome Extension for How To Build a Chrome Extension
I need to build sample chrome extensions for use in the How To Build a Chrome Extension book. I started building a few examples, but $5 for an additional sample extension that I don’t have to build sounded like great value. I found a “gig” on Fiverr that offered to build a chrome extension. For $5, it’s not a 100% custom extension. What you get is a simple RSS reader and icon. The seller will alter his script to insert your RSS feed and the name of your blog into the title. He’ll also input your logo, or create a really simple one for you, and then upload the extension to the App Store for you if you want. There are add-ons and additional payment options if you want something custom made, but this $5 fit my needs perfect. Here’s a screenshot of the RSS Reader chrome extension in action.
Keyword Research for the Chrome Extension Book
In preparation for marketing and launch for the chrome extension book, I thought I also should do some keyword research. I found a keyword research gig on Fiverr and decided to give it a shot. For $5, you really can’t go wrong. I purchased the gig for $5 and mentioned my main issue in keyword research: the disambiguation between search terms for users that want to download a chrome extension versus users that want to learn how to build a chrome extension. The seller assured me that this would be taken into account with my keyword research. When I received my spreadsheet with keyword topics, most of the keywords were related to people looking to install chrome extensions to my dismay. However, for only paying $5, this wasn’t a big deal. It was only $5, and the search terms were all color coordinated to likelihood of ranking for each search term. I was happy with the results. I have to filter out the keywords that do not apply. All in all, it was $5 well spent.
Key Takeaways from Working with Fiver
Understand how add-ons work
When I first started using Fiverr, I thought everything would cost $5, but this isn’t the case. There are additional add-ons that can change the price of each gig. When comparing vendors, make sure you know what you want and understand the add-on pricing. The same item from different vendors may vary in price based on how they structure their add-ons. For example, the first Simpsons drawing I bought was $15. I paid $5 extra for an additional person to be drawn, and then I used a $5 add-on to have it delivered in four days or less (plus base $5 gig). My second drawing was $20. For the second drawing, I had to choose the gig quantity because it was a drawing of two people, and I had to choose the HD quality add-on ($5 add-on to each base drawing – $10 total base and $10 total add-ons for $20 total) because the base package didn’t look like Simpson characters. It was an additional add-on for the $15 drawing to get a full body drawing, but I decided against it. That came with the $20 drawing.
Some providers use add-ons to charge more money for a gig. I was speaking to a developer service provider to do some CodeIgniter work for me. In the gig page, he mentioned that I should contact him before purchasing any gig. I obliged and sent him a message of the work I wanted him to do. He told me to order 10 gigs and that should cover the cost. Fiverr only allows you to buy a quantity of 8. I asked him if $40 would do for the work I was asking for. He said to buy the 8 gigs and then add a $10 add-on and that would equal the 10 gigs ($50). I didn’t have a problem with this because for US workers, that would equal about a half hour of work, but I thought it was odd that the add-ons didn’t have any utility except to add cash to fit an estimate.
You get what you pay for
Don’t forget that these base gigs cost $5. When I ordered the keyword research, I mentioned specifically that part of the challenge was the numerous chrome extension searches and how they differed from searches about how to build chrome extensions. This was not taken into consideration when I received the final product, but what do you expect for $5.
View the money you spend on a Fiverr gig as a sunk cost and spread the money around. Sometimes you’ll get work that is worth much more than $5, and sometimes, you will get work that is almost worthless. When you buy a few different gigs and spend money on different services, this diversification will help you understand where Fiverr can add value for you and you can skip the gigs that don’t give you the results you are looking for.
Look for sellers with high ratings
When searching for service providers, the tab defaults to sponsored sellers. I am still new to Fiverr, but I believe sponsored gigs are gigs where they are paying an extra fee or giving a bigger percentage to Fiverr in order to appear higher on rankings. If you click the “top rated” tab next to sponsored sellers, you will see the service providers who have the highest reviews. Some will also have slashes on their profile images that say “top rated”. I’m sure you will find great service providers in the sponsored sellers area, but I prefer to go with sellers who have been rated highly by other users.
Explore and try different sellers
If you’re only spending $5 on a crucial service, buy from a few different service providers and compare results. Find someone you love, and then allocate more money for them to provide more services for you in the future. You won’t know the quality of someone’s work until they give you the final product. If the base service you need to buy is only $5, try 4 or 5 different service providers and use your favorite one to do more work for you in the future.
Don’t buy time sensitive gigs
Sellers will cancel on you. Although this has only happened to me once or twice, this will happen to you eventually. If you are buying a service that is time sensitive, Fiverr may not be the ideal platform unless you have a good working relationship with the seller. If this is a first time purchase and you have a deadline, don’t use Fiverr. There are other alternatives that will work better for that use case.
Final Thoughts
Using Fiverr was really fun and a favorable experience. I wouldn’t use Fiverr for mission critical parts of my business, but it’s a great resource for graphic design, artwork, and other creative marketing related tasks. I think a great idea is to take $100 and buy 20 random gigs on Fiverr. It will be a good way to dip your foot into the water and see what Fiverr is all about without a significant investment.